By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Chinese farmers may have hit their limit on volume of corn planting, according to Cary Sifferath, U.S. Grains Council (USGC) senior director in China.

He explained the country is probably capped at the amount of land it can bring into production. In fact, the government is trying to control farmland loss to development or housing. Any acreage increase for corn – which is used chiefly as livestock feed – would have to be at the expense of another crop.

As for importing biotech corn seed to improve yield and pest resistance, Sifferath said, “Most of that work, and anything that will happen on the genetically modified (GMO) side, the policy will be pushed toward the Chinese developing” with local funds, rather than buying GMO seed from outside the country.

Charles Ring, a Texas corn grower who also serves as the team leader of USGC’s Asia Programs, asked how Chinese farmers might handle biotech refuge requirements, since each farmer only gets about 2.5 acres on which to grow.

Sifferath said it is possible, since 80 percent or more of China’s cotton is already biotech.

Ring said his encounters with Chinese farmers during a recent USGC corn tour showed him they are big on family working together and they share many of the same concerns as American farmers.
“We heard the same complaints,” he said. “‘It’s too hot.’

‘Fertilizer is going up.’ ‘Government needs to come down and help us more.’” Fuel cost isn’t as big a problem, since he said the farmers he saw didn’t use machines much and had donkeys and mules for the same work.

He added the growers have combines and equipment, but seem to not use it, which puzzled him. It seems the government is trying to help mechanize the industry in China, he said, along with improving buildings in its rural areas – so, one might be tempted to think not using the equipment means there are many people who need those jobs instead.

But, he said the same number of people working the land has shrank because they can no longer support themselves on farming, and there is actually less human labor available than he thought before visiting.

“We never saw a combine running,” Ring noted. “We saw a lot of people with little sickle blades chopping it from the ground.”

There were machines on the sides of the roads, but not in the fields – “And we looked awfully hard for one,” he added.

He said as a corn grower himself, he saw the need for growing more and different hybrids and employing pest control, since corn borer is rampant, and there is much lodging.

But, the Chinese growers he met don’t seem as concerned about it.
Finally, he wryly noted that in the U.S., “precision agriculture” means using GPS and other equipment on large spreads to determine planting, fertilizing and spraying.

In China, it’s the opposite – since each farmer has so little acreage to work, they have to be precise to make the most of it.
“We waste a lot, harvesting through our machinery,” he said. “They don’t waste one kernel.”